Supermarket is the name of an establishment whose main purpose is to bring consumers an important variety of products of different brands, prices and styles. Unlike what happens with a large part of businesses, a supermarket is characterized by exposing these products to the reach of consumers, who resort to the self-service system and pay the amount of items chosen at the end in the checkout area.
The supermarket is organized in physical terms through the division of space into gondolas or shelves in which the products are arranged according to a certain more or less specific order (warehouse products, beverages, fresh food, sweets, baked goods, products from cleaning, pharmacy products, vegetables and fruits, etc.). The objective of this provision is that consumers can freely walk the different aisles to select the necessary items. It is also possible in this way to compare prices, sizes and quantities of the different products offered.
This spatial organization is common and similar in all supermarkets on the planet, thus becoming clear representatives of the globalizing and capitalist phenomenon. Products are estimated to be arranged in such a way as to incentivize customers to buy more than necessary. In this sense, the items of greatest need or daily consumption are usually located at the end of the supermarket to force customers to go through shelves of less necessary products before reaching the first ones.
There are several types of supermarkets. While medium-sized ones are the most common, you can also find mini-markets (those that have only a basic number of products) or hypermarkets, the largest of all. The latter usually add other not so common products such as clothing and footwear, elaborated meals, imported or gourmet products, automotive elements, decorative elements, etc.
One of the strongest criticisms made of the supermarket system itself has to do with the feeling of almost compulsive consumption that it generates in customers. In this sense, the easy access and the endless exposure to the products is specially designed to tempt customers to buy items that they did not plan to carry at first. On the other hand, the supermarket is also criticized for the sale of products that are normally obtained in specialized stores, lowering their sales.
